Many people of the Arts and Letters have made respective statements. We quote only a few (in alphabetical order):
 
Dimos Avdeliodis - Director, screen writer, actor
 
"We were truly scared (by the "black") and terribly disappointed. No one can abolish our national symbol, our culture, our language, namely, the values that ERT stands for"
"I will only say it is nonsense. ERT is our life mark, and this is why I feel immensely alone without ERT"
 
 
Vasilis Vasilikos - Author
 
"The decision to cut the umbilical cord of the public television and the way this decision was announced was ill-advised, unprecedented and a third world type coup. The public interest should always have precedence over the private one, that is why "non passaran".
 
Costas Gavras - Director
 
"It was an action of huge dimensions. It was on all the French media. Yet, the Greek prime minister did not have the courage to appear on the TV and give some explanation, some reason for this action to hundreds of thousands of Greeks. I think this is something unique and utterly unacceptable."
 

Yiorgos Grammatikakis - Professor, Dept of Physics, University of Crete
 
"I think I felt what all the Greek citizens felt! At the beginning it was surprise, because it is not easy for the TV and radio frequencies to go silent, in our homes, in the cafes, on the streets. And then I was outraged. I believe that what we have been experiencing is a morally brutal act, completely stupid in a political sense and utterly unfounded from a legal and constitutional point of view. I hope that the instigators will find the courage to admit their mistake, before it is too late for all of us. The light will be back on our screens and our souls."
 
Manos Eleftheriou - Poet, lyric writer
 
«Each one of these employees has a family; and there are thousands of them. This is a political problem in the broader sense. It is a problem of democracy. I fear that this is the kind of action that sparks great revolutions. It might be the reason for something worse to happen, something we cannot even conceive. That is how uprisings start, from something small like this! Think what started the uprising in Turkey, Egypt and Libya"
 
Kostas Kazakos - Actor
 
"Our sentiments aside, this was a brutal measure and caused great surprise. What the Greek prime minister said caused confusion. He talked about "public television" not "state television". The thing is that television is public, whether it belongs to the state or to the private sector. The matter with the state broadcaster is that it should ensure that the citizens are offered free and independent information."
 
 
Roviros Manthoulis - Director, former artistic director of ERT
 
"I can only express the shock I felt by ERT's closure at a time that the public broadcaster is the only cultural refuge left to the Greek people. It's shut down was a hideous, treacherous action. The Greek people need to find the harshest way possible to punish the government and those who participate in the disbandment of a service that might have been in need of reform but it is well known that is not a burden to the national budget. Its death aims to give over the ad market to private TV channels. I hope that all forces will gather together to put a stop to this shame»
 
 
Titos Patrikios - Poet
 
"Black might be a nice colour when combined with other colours. But when all alone, it stands for Hell. This is the black I detest. It brings to mind fascism and Musolini' s blackshirts. Instead of solving a problem, we try to pretend it does not exist anymore. Public broadcaster going black left us pray to misinformation coming from several suspicious TV channels that do not miss a chance to feed the public with fake and spurious news"
 
 
Renie Pittakie - Actress
 
"Black" at the National Museum.
"Black" at the National Book Center.
A state that brags about the Greek culture shuts down public cultural entities.
Obviously, ERT's time had come. It is the only channel that opens a door to culture and civilization.
Who are those wanting to shut it down? I trust no one.
 
Konstantinos Tsoukalas - Prof. of Sociology, Univ. of Athens
 
"What has been really bothering me is that the positive aspects of ERT's work are not being mentioned. ERT might have been mismanaged, its administration might have intervened in its function, but it still plays an important cultural role in these days.
What is this role? To inform and to help improve the cultural standards of the Greek public. It might not have achieved it to the highest degree but in comparison to the private TV channels and all other forms of mass communication, it is certainly way ahead"
 
Maria Faradouri - Singer
 
"I am very sad and very troubled about this atrocity that took everyone by surprise. No one can imagine "black" on a state channel, in no place on earth, much less, in a so-called civilized country like Greece. It's unthinkable"